Panera takes another step toward ethical meat practices

Panera Bread offered an update on its food policy on Wednesday, saying it has taken big steps toward reducing the use of antibiotics and confinement of animals in its supply chain.

The restaurant company said that by next month all of its pork supply will be fed only a vegetarian diet, never be given any antibiotics, and that the farms that supply its pigs will not use gestation crates on pregnant sows. It also noted that 80% of the beef it served in 2014 was grass-fed, and 18% of the 70 million eggs served were cage-free. Panera has used antibiotic-free chicken since 2004, but this year all of its roasted turkey met the same standard.

Panera first published its food policy in June, announcing its commitment to “clean ingredients.” As part of the move, the company said it would remove artificial colors, sweeteners, flavors, and preservatives from its food by 2016. (It had already removed artificial trans fats from all but one item.)

At the time of the initial announcement, I wrote about how the policy was a reflection of a changing definition of health—that wellness today is not just about fat and calories but also about where our food comes from. “Now [consumers] want to know how food is raised,” says Darren Tristano of industry research firm Technomic. Issues tied to the humane treatment of animals, like free-range, give people an emotional connection to their food and another reason to buy, he adds.

Because that changing definition of health is being driven by Millennial customers, Tristano notes that the initiative from Panera is in part a move to attract younger consumers. “What’s driving it is the mistrust of consumers with restaurants, and particularly the younger generation, [which] is looking for greater transparency,” he says.

In an interview with Fortune, Blaine Hurst, Panera’s chief transformation officer, stressed the company’s desire to be an “ally for wellness” with its customers. “There’s so much noise out there and so many people telling us so many different things,” says Hurst. “What we want you to be able to count on as a consumer is that we’re there for you in this journey of wellness.”

Panera senior vice president of food Dan Kish noted that the company’s updated food policy is also linked to taste. “Animals that are raised in environments with reduced confinement and stress yield a better raw material for us to work with,” he says.

Technomic’s Tristano says that Panera PNRA is ahead of the curve on this front. “The brands that are more successful and thriving can afford to invest in supply chain,” he says. “It’s an investment in the long term.”

The company most often held up as the premier example on these issues is Chipotle CMG, whose “Food with Integrity” campaign promotes the fact that its meat is raised without hormones and antibiotics when “possible” and local and organic produce is used when “practical.”

Carl’s Jr. is also jumping into the game, rolling out a burger made with an “all-natural, grass-fed, free-range beef patty that has no added hormones, antibiotics, or steroids.” In a press release, the company touted that it was the first major fast-food chain to offer an all-natural beef burger and that its decision was driven by a “growing demand for ‘cleaner,’ more natural food, particularly among Millennials.”

McDonald’s MCD, which is suffering through one of its worst years in more than a decade, hinted at its investor meeting last week that it’s looking to make progress in this department by simplifying ingredients. For example, Mike Andres, president of the company’s U.S. business, said that its food probably didn’t need preservatives.

Panera Bread to customers: Guns are allowed but not really

Panera Bread Co PNRA says it wants customers to refrain from coming into its bakery-cafés with guns even if they legally can, becoming the latest national retailer or restaurant to say “No guns, please” but stopping short of banning firearms outright.

This follows similar efforts in the last year by Starbucks SBUX, Target TGT, Chipotle Mexican Grill CMG, Sonic and Jack in the Box, all taking a middle-of-the-road approach to avoid offending anyone on either side of the contentious U.S. gun debate. They are making the request without publicizing it by posting signs inside stores or enforcing it as a rule, as they would to ban customers from bringing in food from outside establishments or require them to wear shoes and shirts.

It also comes as Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which favors stronger gun laws, is trying to get supermarket chain Kroger, KR the third largest U.S. retailer, on its side.

“Panera respects the rights of gun owners, but asks our customers to help preserve the environment we are working to create for our guests and associates,” a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail statement to Fortune. But the spokeswoman declined to say why Panera didn’t simply ban them. Target and Starbucks also referred to earlier press statements that didn’t say why those companies limited themselves to a request of their customers, rather than a rule of conduct in stores.

Still, it seemed good enough for Moms Demand Action.

“We want companies to take a stand on guns,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Business do not want to get involved.” So ‘no guns, please’ requests, even if they’re not enforceable, do contribute to a “cultural shift” Watts said.

As for retailers and restaurants, many struggling with uneven sales numbers, it’s easy to see why they don’t want to be seen as antagonistic to any part of their clientele. Last week, Kroger noted how “passionate” customers on both side of the gun divide are in explaining why it wasn’t asking gun owners to leave their guns outside when shopping.

A Terre Haute, an Indiana gun dealer, last month began a campaign “No Guns=No Money” that is finding traction among those wanting to boycott businesses that ban weapons from their premises, showing how perilous this debate could be for stores and restaurants.

Olive Garden, trying to revive its declining sales, is planning to roll out online ordering across the United States, offer a lunchtime guarantee for customers in a rush, focus more on wine, and add more inexpensive items to its lunch and dinner menus, such as flatbreads.

Olive Garden on Friday reported a 3.4% drop in same-restaurant sales for the year that ended ended May 25, its biggest drop in three years. Now that its parent company Darden DRI is almost done offloading its Red Lobster chain (the $2.1 billion sale to Golden Gate Capital is set to close in July), Darden can focus without distraction on its “Renaissance” plan to revive its biggest restaurant chain.

As the population growth of baby boomers—the most avid restaurant diners—slows, and household income stalls, U.S. casual dining chains like Olive Garden have found themselves grappling with declining customer traffic.

Adding to the pain, chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill CMG and Panera Bread PNRA won customers in search of fast, affordable food that is of higher quality than what they might find at fast-food chains.

“The Olive Garden brand renaissance is a large and complex initiative with many components,” Darden Chief Operating Officer Gene Lee told Wall Street analysts. “We’re confident that the rate of progress will increase in the quarters ahead, and the various aspects of the plan reinforce and build on one another.”

Here is a closer look at what Olive Garden’s “renaissance” entails:

1. Nationwide online ordering

Olive Garden has tested online ordering, which it says has fueled take-out orders, ahead of a nationwide rollout, and found that the check size of a take-out order placed on line has been “significantly higher” than those made by phone. Take-out now accounts for 8% of sales, and such orders made online are growing more quickly than take-out overall. Darden expects the online order system to be available at restaurants nationwide by late August.

2. Turn Olive Garden servers into sommeliers

Lee said Olive Garden will “intensify” its focus on alcoholic drinks. That means concentrating on wine and a few speciality cocktails. It will use mobile apps to better train servers how to recommend wines and pair wines with food.

3. Lunchtime guarantee

Olive Garden is planning a lunchtime guarantee to make sure customers in a hurry can count on a fast lunch if need be. To do that, the restaurant is simplifying recipes and its operations. This is part of a strategy to prop up its lunch business, where guest counts have fallen even more quickly than dinnertime.

4. Offering more inexpensive items

This spring, Olive Garden introduced new menus at lunch and dinner aimed at attracting customers on a budget. The dinner menu now includes a meal for $9.99 in its Cucina Mia section. Next year, it will increase the number of entrées for under $15 specifically to entice young diners, and price-sensitive customers.

For lunch, Olive Garden has added nine new items for $2.99, that can be coupled with a soup, salad and Olive Garden’s legendary breadsticks. This is aimed to provide low-price lunches to compete with fast casual lunch options.

5. Sending in reinforcements for under performing restaurants.

Darden estimates that about 50 particularly poorly performing Olive Garden restaurants are dragging down overall same-restaurant sales. So it has sent senior operational managers to its weakest restaurants to fix them. Lee said same-restaurant sales at those locations, many of which are between 7% and 10% worse than the average.

What Panera’s move to ‘clean ingredients’ reveals about eating today

Restaurant chain Panera Bread PNRA announced a new food policy today—one that commits to what the company is calling “clean ingredients.” As part of the initiative, the chain will remove artificial colors, sweeteners, flavors, and preservatives from its food by 2016. Clean ingredients mean those you “don’t need a dictionary to understand,” says Panera CEO Ron Shaich.

Panera has already removed artificial trans fats from its menu on all but one item (the Cobblestone muffin, which is being reformulated), and all of the restaurant chain’s chicken, roasted turkey, sausage, and ham are raised without the use of antibiotics. The company has looked at antibiotic-free beef but says there currently isn’t a supplier that can handle its volume.

When it comes down to it, Panera’s food policy is about health—and how what we mean when we talk about health is changing. The fact that the 12th largest restaurant chain in the U.S. by sales is taking these steps is just the latest sign that we’ve moved toward a mainstream definition of healthy eating that is not simply about fat and calories but increasingly focused on where foods come from.

A recent survey by industry research firm Technomic found that natural, unprocessed, sustainable, and local offerings at restaurants are often more important to consumers than traditional health claims like “low fat” and “low calorie.” This is especially the case for millennials and Gen-Xers. (Boomers still care more about traditional health claims than their younger cohorts, according to the survey.)

Take Chipotle CMG, which is known for its burritos, which can top 1,000 calories and 50 grams of fat. Frequenters of the chain often argue that they’re making a healthy decision, despite the caloric price tag, because of its “Food with Integrity” campaign, which touts its meat raised without hormones and antibiotics when possible and local and organic produce when practical.

NPD Group’s Harry Balzer says that people today aren’t any more health conscious than they were in 1978 when he started tracking what people eat. In fact having salad as a main dish at a restaurant peaked in 1989 (10% of all lunches and dinners), Balzer says. We’re now down to about 5%.

What we consider good for us changes as we are faced with ever-evolving science, not to mention speculation and constant fads. Of late, for example, a book entitled “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet”—which contradicts the previous doctrine on the alleged evils of fat—has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list.

Exacerbating the confusion for consumers is that we don’t see an instant impact of anything we do that’s healthy, whether it’s cutting calories or eating organic, Balzer says. The Nutritional Information Labeling Act of 1985 represented our desire to identify things we wanted removed from our meals: fat, sodium, and cholesterol. The 2000s were about adding beneficial things like whole grains, Omega-3s, and antioxidants. Now we are in the middle of what Balzer calls the free movement—GMO-free or antibiotic-free—focusing on the purity of the ingredients. (Panera CEO Shaich tells Fortune he supports GMO labeling.)

“The way we serve our shareholders is to figure out what’s going to matter,” Shaich says, “and I fundamentally believe nutrition, how you eat, and wellness are powerful themes. They’re present. You can see it.”